Biscuits, cows and cycling

Today’s guest picture comes from Mary Jo’s visit to British Columbia. She passed these magnificent sandstone cliffs called The Hoodoos on her way home.

After overnight rain, we woke to a rather miserable wet morning here, but it was still warm enough to keep the colour in the garden. It was the sort of day to encourage indoor activity and I finished off a week of the newspaper index for the Archive Group database after breakfast.

The rain eased a little, so I walked up to the town to pay for my birdseed (which was kindly delivered later in the day), and took in the corner shop on my way home.

A leisurely cup of coffee, reading the papers and doing the crossword took up some time, and then baking a batch of ginger biscuits took me painlessly up to lunch time. After lunch, I took a look at the birds. Their activity was in sharp contrast to my gentle morning.

It was an all action scene, and it was just as well that I had a new supply of seed to hand.

The forecast was for better weather in the afternoon so I went out into the garden to sniff the air. Starlings were also looking about.

Mrs Tootlepedal was encouraged by the better weather to take a walk up to the oak trees in Longwood. She enjoyed her recent meeting with the Woodland Trust people regarding registering and looking after very old trees, and she is considering whether to join the project as there are many fine old oaks in the wood.

I decided to leave her in peace and got my road bike out. I pedalled round my familiar Canonbie circuit. It was dry and not too windy, but my legs were still in a rather non co-operative mood so I took things gently and had plenty of time to look around. It was a day for catching the eyes of cattle.

As was appropriate for a pretty colourless day, there were white cattle . . .

. . . black and white cattle both standing . . .

. . . and sitting . . .

. . . and black cattle.

And then, to round off this collection, there was a grey cow.

At this point, I said to myself, “How now!” and found a brown cow.

. . . and then found two more.

Lest you think that I was obsessed with cows and bullocks, I took a picture of a very grey sheep too.

When I got to Canonbie my thoughts turned to autumn matters, prompted by this fine tree at the bridge.

I stopped at Byreburnfoot to look up the river and enjoy the fungus at my feet. . .

. . . and then stopped at the Hollows to look both ways from the bridge.

My last pictures were of one of those yellow flowers that are not dandelions, possibly an autumn hawkbit, and a fine shaggy ink cap fungus which might be edible but I am not going to try it.

I got home just before Mrs Tootlepedal got back from her walk, and I had a walk round the garden before going in to join her for a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit. The temperature could get quite low tonight but in the meantime, the flowers are holding on very well . . .

. . . especially the dahlias.

I got changed in time for the regular Zoom with Mrs Tootlepedal and my sisters (my brother was at the theatre today) and caught up on their news.

Then we cooked a couple of gammon steaks with potatoes, carrots, sweet pepper and mushrooms in one pot in the new air fryer. It all came out well cooked and pretty tasty. We are getting some confidence with the new machine, but there is a lot still to learn.

The flying bird of the day is a greenfinch. I don’t think that we have ever had so many greenfinches as we have had lately.